


run boy run

by utrinque_paratus



Category: Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch
Genre: (And loosely based on the song 'Run Boy Run' by Woodkid), Gen, POV Thomas Nightingale, Post-Ettersberg, Werewolves, based on fanart, wartime imagery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-17 05:21:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29466429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/utrinque_paratus/pseuds/utrinque_paratus
Summary: Nightingale on the long walk home.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	run boy run

**Author's Note:**

> This small fanfic was inspired by this wonderful fanart by jarrows on tumblr:  
> https://jarrows.tumblr.com/post/642876642853847040/run-boy-run

Cold light bore down on him. Its weight pinned him onto the floor, making gravity work against him even more. More than it had during all the blurred hours made of endless heartbeats measuring all the senseless days that had passed.

A nightmarish haze. 

_ Step, step, another step. _

Emptiness echoing a world not made for any living thing.

Vivid red splattering, searing into that layer of innocent and scorching bright specks of white. 

Blinding was the snow that reflected the moonlight. Everything, so hard to distinguish. Tree trunks were shadows, its fingers spreading and swallowing all in their way. Shadows blended into non-existent trenches and foxholes and bombing craters, built upon devouring abysses filled with screeching corpses grasping for him. Those men and women and children, his lads, his men, his  _ friends, _ begging him to help, or threatening to haul him along with them? 

All, fading to white.

White stabbing into his eyes. A bullet tearing through his side.

Gunshot, silence, desperate to hold back his agonised cries.

_ Not a sound, _ or they will find you.  _ Not a spell, _ or they will find you. 

The white was so painful that the urge to shut his eyes became almost impossible to defy. 

But he knew, the moment he would close them, he would slip.

The moment he would slip would make whatever still kept his shattered fragments together crumble to dust. 

And if he crumbled, he would not get back up.

_ Step, another step.  _

Pain was the only thing that kept him awake, had him not drown; kept him putting one step in front of the other, on, and on. 

Get up.  _ I can’t. _ Get up. _ I can’t. I can’t do this. Not anymore. _

_ You have to, _ he had to will himself.  _ Even if you can’t.  _

And thus, the lonely bird lying, wings crushed, on the frozen German grounds, forced himself back up on his feet. Dragged both his body and mind back up and walked on; on the long way home; and on; and on, through the labyrinth of bare beeches and pricking conifers lining the land where the Moselle wound its path home.

Mile after mile. 

_ How many more? _

_ Step. Another step.  _

He had ceased to feel the cold. Long before, at a point he could not remember, he had been frozen to the bone, which had then made him feel as if he was burning alive, which in turn had morphed into nothing but deadness. 

There was only the red-hot agony of the wound, and the blinding white; the tears not spilled and the muted screams inside his mind. 

_ Step, another step. _

The screams, the howls. 

Another howl, splitting the skies; cracking them wide open to give way for a lightning of fear that struck him, raced through him from head to toe, jolted him forward on instinct alone. 

If they find you, they will catch you. 

Steps would not suffice. He had to run.

_ Run, little bird, _ it echoed through the tree trunks.  _ Run, _ yelled the ghosts, their bodies spread across war-torn grounds; their bodies on the Ettersberg, their mouths slowly filling with mud.

Paws drumming, claws digging, snow spraying, teeth bared, drool dripping, eyes fixed onto their long-desired prey, that bird too broken to fly. 

The pain became a spinning sawblade tearing through his insides. 

_ I can’t do this. _ All that was ripped over his cracked and bloodied lips was a cry. 

_ Run, bird, run.  _

His heartbeats were the drumbeat against his straining ribs. His heartbeats kept trailing chaotic brushstrokes of red paint throughout the snow. His heartbeat balanced the line of survival, and every heartbeat was another footprint etched into the Eifel. 

A victory: That was what another heartbeat of his had become. 

_ A victory for whom? _ Between the horrors, he had forgotten. 

The howling of the werewolves had grown thrilled with hunger, with rushing madness.

Closer and closer.

The trees shifted closer together, a narrow corridor, a tunnel that grew longer and longer. Hot breath on his neck, and heartbeats of pain pounding like an iron pickaxe into his head. 

_ I cannot do this anymore.  _

Static of tormented white foamed over, and he closed his eyes. 

But when he slipped, the magic sang.

_ Run, bird, run. For beauty lays behind the hills.  _

Beauty; the ones he loved waiting for him beyond the abyss. The night that would fade away; the cruel promise of the once upon a future day. 

Flakes of silver draped him into a curtain as he made contact with the soil and turned; as the Nightingale joined the magic’s song and screamed. 

**Author's Note:**

> Run boy run! This world is not made for you  
> Run boy run! They're trying to catch you  
> Run boy run! Running is a victory  
> Run boy run! Beauty lays behind the hills
> 
> \--
> 
> Oh dear, do I have lyrical aspirations now? :)  
> (Please do not judge me. And to be honest, I only realised that I had accidentally rhymed stuff when I had written the first draft and re-read. Must have been the beat of the song stuck in my head.)
> 
> This was written in a single sitting after being made aware of the fanart (since I am barely active on tumblr these days). But I simply adore Woodkid and Run Boy Run, and combined with the amazing artwork, enough factors came together to absolutely eradicate my impulse control (never mind that I actually barely have time for anything right now - stuck in the middle of a major exam period.)
> 
> I hope you enjoy this small snippet. I am sending hugs and love to you all!


End file.
